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We have a master gardener in our
family. Two, actually. My wife, Catherine, and her identical twin,
Eleanor. These women spent a whole year studying stuff like how to
grow things that you’d like to have and how to avoid growing things
that turn your stomach.
Catherine is really active in the group and volunteers to find
volunteers. Hey, you can ask. She loves doing it, and I’m kinda an
occasional tag-a-long.
We went to a pruning clinic just the other day to learn how to prune
grapevines. We listened, took pictures and snipped things off that
looked to me like they belonged where we found them.
Shows what I know.
At home we prepared to give our own grapevine a thorough inspection
to see about things like new growth, arms, bumps on the arms, all
that stuff that knowledgeable gardeners who attend pruning clinics
learn.
It’s a wild grapevine that began life
in a canyon up in the fairly nearby desert mountains. I, being a
know-nothing gardener, wrenched it from its ground and planted it in
the side yard here at the house. That was about 20 years ago. Since
that time, it has flourished, having reached out to our neighbors to
the south, and consumed everything in its path that held still long
enough.
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So out we went to our tiny little part
of the viticultural world, just outside the office window a little
way, and the vine exploded in our faces as a mama white-winged dove
blasted out of there to a neighbor’s tree. After undergoing self
CPR, we looked and there was a tiny nest of twigs in the top of the
grapevine. With two little eggs sitting quietly, waiting for Mom to
come home.
I don’t care how much our “vineyard” needs it, there will be no
pruning on it without the full blessing of The Family Dove. Maybe
next year.
[Text from file received from
Slim Randles]
Brought to you by
“Max Evans, the First Thousand Years,” by Slim Randles. Available in
bookstores and online from UNM Press.
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